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•BEDSTEAD used in Deuteronomy 3:11, but elsewhere rendered “couch,” “bed.” In 2 Kings 1:4; 16:2; Psalm 132:3; Amos 3:12, the divan is meant by this word.
•BEE First mentioned in Deuteronomy 1:44. Swarms of bees, and the danger of their attacks, are mentioned in Psalm 118:12. Samson found a “swarm of bees” in the carcass of a lion he had slain (Judges 14:8). Wild bees are described as laying up honey in woods and in clefts of rocks (Deuteronomy 32:13; Psalm 81:16). In Isaiah 7:18 the “fly” and the “bee” are personifications of the Egyptians and Assyrians, the inveterate enemies of Israel.
•BEELZEBUB (Gr. form Beel’zebul), the name given to Satan, and found only in the New Testament (Matthew 10:25; 12:24, 27; Mark 3:22). It is probably the same as Baalzebub (q.v.), the God of Ekron, meaning “the Lord of flies,” or, as others think, “the Lord of dung,” or “the dung-God.”
•BEER well. (1.) A place where a well was dug by the direction of Moses, at the forty-fourth station of the Hebrews in their wanderings (Numbers 21:16-18) in the wilderness of Moab. (See WELL.)
(2.) A town in the tribe of Judah to which Jotham fled for fear of Abimelech (Judges 9:21). Some have identified this place with Beeroth.